Duffy released her debut album, Rockferry, in 2008, which topped the charts in several music markets and led to worldwide attention.

In 2010, she made her acting debut in the film Patagonia and released her second studio album Endlessly to moderate success.

Duffy's parents divorced when she was 10 and she moved to Letterston,[citation needed] near the Pembrokeshire town of Fishguard, with her mother and sisters.

In reaction to her parents' break-up, her next three years were a rebellious period that included binge drinking and stealing a rowing boat.

[12] After finishing her GCSEs in Pembrokeshire,[13] Duffy returned to Nefyn, to live with her father, when she was fifteen, and started singing in various local bands.

Duffy then spent six weeks in Switzerland (before she started college), collaborating with the writer-producer Soren Mounir, under the name Soulego.

[18] Duffy was introduced to Jeanette Lee of Rough Trade Records in August 2004, after singing Richard Parfitt's "Oh Boy".

[21] After Butler had given Duffy a soul music "education" by downloading tracks on to her iPod that she could listen to while around London or travelling back to Wales, the pair co-wrote with her and helped create a new retro sound.

[22] The music included tracks by Al Green, Bettye Swann, Ann Peebles, Doris Duke, Scott Walker, Phil Spector and Burt Bacharach.

Duffy also made appearances on the BBC Two television programme The Culture Show on 23 February 2008, performing "Mercy".

In January 2008, Duffy came second to Adele in the annual BBC News Online poll of industry experts Sound of 2008, for acts to emerge in the coming year.

[28] She subsequently struck a US label deal with Mercury Records, a newly re-activated imprint of Island Def Jam Music Group.

[29] Butler and his musical partner David McAlmont, along with a number of other musicians, formed the backbone of Duffy's band for her debut album, Rockferry, which was released on A&M Records on 3 March 2008.

[30] The black-and-white album art and video for the title track were shot by directors Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull, on and around the Ffestiniog Railway in Porthmadog, which was renamed 'Rockferry' for the occasion.

Duffy released the debut limited-edition single "Rockferry" in November 2007; it was followed by "Mercy", produced and co-written by Steve Booker, which went straight to number one.

The song occurred when Duffy, then 19 years old, was familiarising herself with the London Underground and accidentally found herself at the Warwick Avenue station.

At first the video for the song was meant to be an elaborate production, but ended up a tearful head shot in a taxi cab with Duffy's mascara smudging.

"[35] By May, "Mercy" was a staple on VH1 and a hot Adult Contemporary radio hit and had been featured in the season finale of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy as well as being on the soundtrack album for Sex and the City: The Movie.

[32] Despite her album's success in the United States, she was quoted as saying "I don't like how big American stars consider themselves an exception from humanity".

[50] At the MTV Europe Music Awards, she received nominations in the categories of Album of the Year, Most Addictive Track, and New Act.

Record producers & songwriters Steve Booker & Bernard Butler gained awards for their work on the Rockferry album.

[70][71] "Mercy" was played on United States radio and television more than 3 million times earning Duffy a 2009 Broadcast Music Incorporated award.

[77] For the 2009 movie called "The Boat That Rocked" in the UK and "Pirate Radio" in North America, Duffy sang Lorraine Ellison's "Stay With Me Baby".

[86][87] In September 2013, Duffy gave her first live performance in three years during a tribute to Edith Piaf in New York City.

[89] In 2015, she appeared the crime thriller film Legend, playing American singer Timi Yuro and also contributed three songs to the soundtrack, her first recordings since 2010.

Albums by Amy Winehouse and Adele were also named as essential Blue Eyed Soul recordings in the "recent" category.

[102] In addition, the advert went on to spark unexpected complaints about the health of children when it showed Duffy riding without protective gear, to the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority.

Becker said that she was hired in March 2010 and was dismissed in December 2010, but was supposed to remain Duffy's manager until the end of the promotion of Endlessly or alternatively four months after its initial release.

[118] In a longer statement published that April, Duffy wrote that she had been drugged at a restaurant on her birthday, taken to a foreign country on a plane, and was then held captive in a hotel room and raped.

Since the ordeal, Duffy said that she spent "almost 10 years completely alone" and, thanking her psychologist, said that she now felt she could "leave this decade behind", but added: "I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew".